Sandbox-style: What's your opinion?

[Mallus]

I like my sandbox to be amply stocked with bright, shiny toys, which I suppose in this case means "pre-made NPC's with interesting personalities, motivations, conflicts, and other juicy plot/narrative bits the players can run with".

I prefer an emergent campaign to emerge from more that a hex map and a series of random encounter tables (though I'll admit that the DM'ing challenge presented by such a bare-bones setting intrigues me).

Also, as an aside, I believe that all games scale, one way or another. It's a vital part of maintaining long-running campaigns. The only difference is in how you disguise the scaling, if you even bother doing so.

 

[Reynard]

Also, as an aside, I believe that all games scale, one way or another. It's a vital part of maintaining long-running campaigns. The only difference is in how you disguise the scaling, if you even bother doing so.

True. But there's a difference between the game scaling because the players seek out adventures that challenge them and scaling because the DM mandates that all encounter are +/- 2 "levels" within the party's level.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Reynard, thanks for the answers...as for the last, there seems to an emphasis by the sandboxers on smaller, personal goals (or things just made up on the fly), versus bigger, singular events.

That's a mistake, IMHO.

A sandbox is supposed to allow the PCs to make meaningful choices, but not having the world turn (and bigger events are part of the world turning). As a DM, you don't want to set up any consequences you are unwilling to follow through on, though. I.e., if you set up something where the PCs either act or the world is destroyed, you might end up with a destroyed world. OTOH, there is nothing wrong with Sauron winning and the world being plunged into darkness (ala Midnight). The players deal with the consequences of their characters' actions or inactions.

There was a Dragon magazine (weretiger on the cover, don't know the issue number) that had some really good advice for setting up a campaign world that I would certainly qualify as a sandbox. It included setting an overarching campaign goal that the DM presents facets of as part of various other adventures, enticing the players to choose to follow it. It includes beginning with several small quests that the PCs can undertake, allowing them to choose their shakedown cruise(s). It includes giving PCs mentors....NPCs who can offer limited advice and help in their area of expertise. All in all, one of the best articles on setting up a campaign that I've ever read.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

You mean if the PCs are higher than 8th level or so? The first one's pretty fun (like playing Doom in God Mode), but after that, not so much. That's why God invented "Help Wanted" signs. Place a post on the central message post in town square to the effect of "Local cave-clearing missions for the adventurous and brave. Treasure and glory await. Local Heroes with better things to do will provide their best dungeon-clearing tips, some healing potions, 10 days rations and one donkey with supplies for the brave at heart. Will take only 10% commission on treasure recovered."

Then the PCs can learn the pleasure of delegation, not to mention have a little fun drafting ads that they used to respond to when they were 1st level.

You can also set up a sandbox where each player has a "character tree". When Lord Reynard and his 8th level parties run into a kobold lair in the hills, they just mark the location and send in Cousin Crowking on a different day. Similarly, when Cousin Crowking hears about giants attacking a village, he sends word to Lord Reynard. Each player effectively controls a small "clan" of interlinked adventuring allies, allowing players to tackle a job with the appropriate force.


EDIT: Dang. Shades of Green beat me to it.

 

[GlassJaw]

This. The world is the sandbox. You can (and many do) use pre-written adventures in 'sandbox' play, the trick is getting enough information together on the setting to create the sandbox itself.

+1

I'm a fan of the sandbox style but I'll agree with a lot of the posters here that it is potentially a lot more work.

That said, I would never undertake running such a campaign "from scratch". That's just too much work. If you have a massive supply of published material (like a huge backlog of Dungeon mags like I do), then it's gets a whole lot easier.

The first thing I would do is go through all your modules and catalogue them by level, environment, and location. Pick out some of the best ones at the level you are starting the campaign and generate some rumors based on those. Let the players choose where they want to go. Once they do that, you can flesh out or tweak the module as needed.

Remember, you don't need to create "everything" beforehand. Quite the opposite. You'll drive yourself insane if you do that.

Another thing to keep in mind to bring the "sandbox" to life is that things will be happening in other parts of the world independent of the players. Create some factions, organizations, churches, adventuring groups, etc that have their own motivations and timelines. Throw in some of these in-between adventures. They might even draw the interest of the players and you'll have more plot hooks.

Rival adventuring groups are great in a sandbox setting, especially if the PC's are interested in the same things. A race to a newly uncovered dungeon would be great fun.

 

[evildm]

When I was younger I used to run pretty much every campaign this way. Just see what happens and roll with it. As such, I was very good (IMHO) at handling things on the fly and keeping it interesting.

As I've gotten older, it's been a bid difficult to do, but after running an adventure path and a heap of pre-written adventures, I've got a hankering for a sandbox style campaign. As such, it's what I'm prepping for right now as my next campaign.

I took most of my inspiration and ideas from the Grand Experiments: West Marches articles over on Ars Ludi (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and running your own) and have been fleshing out a wilderness area of Eberron for my players to romp around in. I've been doing my best to create one interesting item a day: NPCs, locations, quests, macguffins, etc. Nothing is extremely fleshed out, but I hope that when the campaign starts I'll have enough elements floating around that players can latch onto and interesting play will emerge from that. Over my years of DMing, emergent play seems to be the most rewarding.

Thanks for the interesting non-edition-flamewar-topic! Also, I highly recommend checking out the articles I've linked above, if you've never read them before.

 

[FriarRosing]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my questions earlier. But there are a couple more things the idea of a sandbox campaign has me wonder about.

Hypothetically speaking, if the party goes someplace and has the crap kicked out of them, forcing them to run, does that create the risk of meta game thinking along the lines of 'oh, well, we better level up some before we head back there again?'

Also, thinking in terms of 4th edition, should I draw up maps for every possible dungeon, but still keep the actually encounters contained therein random? Or should I just have a few very basic maps that I can reuse (say by turning it upside down for one dungeon as opposed to another or something like that) and just improvise or randomly generate details? And is the 'encounter deck' a good idea?

Sorry if these are really newbie type questions.

 

[El Mahdi]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my questions earlier. But there are a couple more things the idea of a sandbox campaign has me wonder about.

Hypothetically speaking, if the party goes someplace and has the crap kicked out of them, forcing them to run, does that create the risk of meta game thinking along the lines of 'oh, well, we better level up some before we head back there again?'

Also, thinking in terms of 4th edition, should I draw up maps for every possible dungeon, but still keep the actually encounters contained therein random? Or should I just have a few very basic maps that I can reuse (say by turning it upside down for one dungeon as opposed to another or something like that) and just improvise or randomly generate details? And is the 'encounter deck' a good idea?

Sorry if these are really newbie type questions.

To the first question: They may "metathink" (it's always a possibility no matter what), or they might think along the lines of: "We got wipped. We need to rethink our strategy". By going back to the drawing board, they may determine they have things they need to learn before they re-attempt. This is the basis of "experience". Their "experience" has forced them to learn and adapt to new strategies.

To the second question: I would only write up dungeons for whatever seeds you have planted with your group. They will decide where they want to go. But (hopefully) they won't go anywhere you haven't already given them clues or leads to. In other words, instead of leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that you expect them to follow, you leave multiple trails of breadcrumbs, any one of which they can choose to follow. If they go off the grid (and they may do just that), you can still use any of your prepared dungeons (they don't need to know it was intended for somewhere else), or you just make it up on the fly.

And I love encounter decks. There awesome for varied and believable, yet random, encounters. (I still use my AD&D Deck of Encounters I & II boxes)

 

[Fenes]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my questions earlier. But there are a couple more things the idea of a sandbox campaign has me wonder about.

Hypothetically speaking, if the party goes someplace and has the crap kicked out of them, forcing them to run, does that create the risk of meta game thinking along the lines of 'oh, well, we better level up some before we head back there again?'

That's not metagaming. It's a quite common reaction of many people to failing at a task, be it in sports, school or a fight - train more, learn more, get better tools, try another tactic. Entire movies and novels are centered on the hero(es) having to get better, to learn new combat skills etc., to beat the villains.

 

[S'mon]

That's not metagaming. It's a quite common reaction of many people to failing at a task, be it in sports, school or a fight - train more, learn more, get better tools, try another tactic. Entire movies and novels are centered on the hero(es) having to get better, to learn new combat skills etc., to beat the villains.

Exactly right. "This isn't over. I shall grow strong in magic and battle skills - then you shall hear of me again!"